Proceeds from Michael Bloombergs Book to Benefit CPJ

Michael Bloomberg, publisher of Bloomberg News, has announced that he is donating the royalties from his newly published autobiography, Bloomberg by Bloomberg, to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the independent, nonprofit organization that monitors press freedom violations worldwide.

The only difference between totalitarianism and democracy is a free press, said Bloomberg in his announcement. In most countries outside the West, reporters are suppressed, attacked, censored, even assassinated, just for doing their job. In defending these reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists is trying to extend to the rest of the world the freedom and openness we enjoy in the United States.

Well-known for his philanthropic service in education and other areas, Bloomberg chaired CPJs annual International Press Freedom Awards dinner in 1996. We greatly value Michael Bloombergs continued support of CPJ at a time when reporters from Hong Kong to Belgrade to Havana are facing unprecedented risks, said Kati Marton, who chairs CPJs board of directors.

This is an extraordinarily generous gesture by Michael, for which journalists around the world will be extremely grateful, said Marton. Without press freedom neither democracy nor free markets can flourish anywhere in the world, and Michael has been quick to recognize this essential connection.

Bloomberg by Bloomberg (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) was written with invaluable help from Matthew Winkler, who heads Bloombergs news division. It chronicles the rise of the entrepreneur who forged a vast global business and information empire from a company that began with a computer terminal that delivers financial data and analysis to users desks.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, which documents and responds to violations of press freedom worldwide, is funded entirely by private donations from journalists, news organizations and foundations; it does not accept government funding. CPJs web site provides the latest news about press freedom conditions around the world, a database of past and present casework, and the full text of its 376-page book Attacks on the Press in 1996, the single most authoritative and comprehensive source of information on the status of press freedom worldwide.

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The information in this news alert may be freely copied and distributed provided that it is properly attributed to the Committee to Protect Journalists.